This Past Was Waiting For Me: A Chronicle at Quarter Century

In this groundbreaking, genre-bending book, American University professor Sarah Trembath braids poetry, art, personal essay, and scholarly analysis to salvage Black history from its misconstructions and misrememberings. This Past Was Waiting for Me distills Trembath's decades-long body of academic and artistic work into a cohesive artistic experience that drives empathy and combats misinformation.

Trembath corrects the historical record while adding to it—she reflects on both the horrors and the richness, holding back on neither. Her account of history covers a swathe of eras and events from the Middle Passage to the present, including contemporary coloniality, the genocidal wars abroad, and an ongoing, interwoven account of the gentrification of her old neighborhood of Shaw in Washington, DC. She draws upon the roles of students, teachers, artists, and activists as the sources of hope for a transformed Western world.

The book shows, importantly, how Black history is inextricable from current events. As Trembath writes, her book "leans forward and dips back, chronicles in irregularity and circularity what contextualizes Today. I hope that it also points forward to what you (we) are actively unfolding in indignation and celebration, energized and undaunted all the way."